Search This Blog

Hortus Roman 5 - Villa D'Este

Some of you may wonder why we started off in Tivoli seeing Villa Adriana, then went to Villa Lante/Franese and then came back to Tivoli to D'Este? Well we didn't, we went to D'Este after Villa Adriana and whilst you may think I got over excited and missed this one for a while, I am going to claim that going in order is just dull. Confusingly there appears to be at least two Villa D'Estes in Italy, this one near Tivoli and another one near Lake Como.

Villa D'Este is about water. Lots of it, water spouting everywhere.

There are fountains and pools everywhere. As with other gardens we visited on this trip, this garden was sadly damaged during the Second World War, but still much remains.

There is also a lot of carving and elements borrowed, taken (plundered?) from Villa Adriana.

and did I mention water?

lots of it. It makes a very cooling space and the sound is quite wonderful.

The different faces of the water spouts add real character. I look though at the water and think about even in this modern world we live in there are still huge parts of the globe where clean fresh water is hard to come by. Whilst we buy expensive bottled water and let our taps flow, people die from water-borne diseases every day. I look at this use of water, that we have seen used extensively in these grand Italian statement gardens and cannot believe that clean running water was in abundance when these were built. I think about the diverting of water to make these features and the impact that this might have had downstream on the people. What was the line of the song about holidaying in other peoples' misery?*

We moved on to ponder this young lady who had hooves, a tail, wings and water spouts (not working) from her breasts. It was like someone had been given a catalogue to put her together and the pages kept turning accidentally.

Cardinal Ippolito II D'Este, who originally commissioned the garden, might have had a bit of a thing about breasts.....

maybe.....

possibly?

Moving on...

The gardens are filled with the scent of roses,

and pots of lemon and orange trees line the canals.

There is (of course) the grand statement water feature. We have to be reminded that great wealth created this garden.

and also this wonderful well-head.

Even outside the Villa there is sculpture and water,

I found this modern piece quite stunning. The pigeon perching on it was an added bonus.

This is a fantastic garden to explore. It is very steep with lots of steps and slopes and you discover things as you turn each corner. As a statement garden I did like it, it has the wow factor that you expect, in fact probably more wow than you expect. It was a good visit and we returned to the hotel happy, tired and with our legs feeling a little achey from all the steps.

Comments

That is a lot of water for a country that probably has regular droughts. I guess it was an expression of wealth and power to build water gardens like this. I do hope that the recycle and reuse the water these days though.

I particularly like the 5th pic, with the ferny-moss growing around the spouts.

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Regular readers will know that I have reviewed a few products for Stihl from their domestic battery range. It was therefore a delight to be asked if I would review their new RMA 339c rechargeable lawnmower. I have not paid for this product but as ever my words and opinions are my own.
This is a handsome lawnmower. Stihl have until fairly recently made and sold lawnmowers under the trade name 'Viking', now they started branding them in the Stihl orange and white that we know and love.

This mower has a cutting width of 37cm. This is a good width for my lawns, not too small to mean it takes me a long time, but nippy enough that I can mow around things where I need to. It is quiet compared to non-rechargeable mowers and weighs in at 16 kg, which is quite light.

The first thing that made me like this mower was when I went to collect it.
It fitted in the boot. Admittedly the grass collection box has to sit on the passenger seat, but I had been worrying about how I would get it…

It is that time of the year when I announce the winner of this year's Plant of the Year Award. This award is given to the plant that has performed best and/or pleased me most this year in the garden. It is competed for quite seriously by most of the garden and it is always difficult to decide who has won. Last year I started to make notes as the year went on and I have had to do so again this year.

Many plants could be chosen, there can only be one winner but as it is my award and my rules I can have as many (or as few) runners up as I decide. So, this year's runners up are:

The snowdrop 'Madeline'
This was bought from Thenford earlier this year and is the most expensive snowdrop I have ever bought. So expensive that I shared the cost of the pot with a friend and we divided the contents between up. For proper galanthrophiles the cost would be peanuts, but for someone like myself who is a pleb when it comes to snowdrops, this was a big deal.
You can imagine my hap…

We are in the first week of 2018 and tradition dictates that I should be setting myself new year's resolutions that I will fully intend to carry out and yet (more often than not) fail to do so. I cannot remember when I last bowed to that dictat and set any resolutions as I tend to take the view if there is something I need to be doing I should get on with it and not wait for some specific date. Anyhoo, that said, the winter months are great for planning ahead for the garden. January in particular I always find overly grey and it can be hard to get into the garden, so pondering what the year may hold for the garden is a useful exercise.

Pondering - not resolving -this is absolutely completely and totally different to setting resolutions.....

As mentioned previously I have now been in this garden for ten years. I love (nearly) every inch of this garden and it is a very important part of my life. Even if the weather means I cannot usefully do much i…